December 9, 2008

Coldplay Deny Plagiarism Accusation, Get Dissed By Reuters

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mojo-photo-coldplaysatriani.jpgThey just can’t win. As reported here on Friday, UK ballad-producers and castoff-military-gear-sporters Coldplay had their highest-profile plagiarism accusation to date when guitarist Joe Satriani filed suit against the band, saying they’d ripped off one of his songs. Well, Coldplay have responded, calling any resemblance between “Viva La Vida” and Satriani’s “If I Could Fly” “entirely coincidental”:

“If there are any similarities between our two pieces of music, they are entirely coincidental, and just as surprising to us as to him,” the band said in a posting on its website.

“Joe Satriani is a great musician, but he did not write or have any influence on the song ‘Viva La Vida.’ We respectfully ask him to accept our assurances of this and wish him well with all future endeavours.”

So, take that, right? But Reuters can’t help but have some fun, describing the band in a way that’s gotta make Chris Martin wince:

Coldplay, whose soaring atmospheric tunes have been unfavourably compared to those of U2, brushed off the allegations.

“Unfavourably”? Is that really necessary? I mean, yes, totally, but that doesn’t seem like, you know, reporting. But hey, if Reuters says it, it must be a fact. Either way, it’s a good excuse for me to run my cute Photoshop collage again.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

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Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

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Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

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